ITV abandons the South Bank

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It is perhaps not that widely known that there was once a studio 10 at LWT. It was built on floor 10 of the main office block during 1988 and was often referred to as the 'tenth floor studio'. Despite its small size it was equipped with five BTS LDK 90 cameras which were later updated by the 91/93 version. This 950 sq ft studio (33ft x 29ft wall to wall with an 8ft grid height) was originally created for a new kind of on-air presentation which, for the first time, exploited the views across London. This was marketed as The Weekend Live and began on 13th January 1989. The idea behind this new presentation style was to consolidate LWTs identity 'as a broadcaster for London, broadcasting from London' (it says here) - and to underline this with a live view of the Thames. Ironically, some might say, to steal the thunder of ITV weekday broadcaster Thames TV, who despite their name only ever showed a stylised photo graphic of the river. Continuity links were moved to this studio for certain parts of the weekend - although curiously not using the usual continuity announcers. Mike Smith, the radio DJ, was one of the new presenters.

I'm told that the programme department responsible for 'The Weekend Live' ordered all the technical equipment for the studio themselves without involving the LWT engineering department as they might 'complicate things.' Inevitably, after several disastrous breakdowns on air it was all ripped out and replaced with better kit a few months later and the floor plan of the studio and control rooms was redesigned.

Studio 10 was used in 1990 as a call centre for ITV's Telethons, plus some of their other network programmes involving phone-ins. I'm told that it was also used for Cilla Black's Surprise Surprise for some live inserts. The studio became home to Police 5, Crime Monthly, LWT News, 6 O'Clock Live and a range of other local programmes including The Sunday Match.

6 O' Clock Live followed on from the popular 6 O'Clock Show, which had been made in studio 2. It ran from 1990 to the end of 1992 and was presented at various times by Danny Baker, Jeni Barnett, Frank Bough and Joanna Sheldon. When LNN began broadcasting from the new studio 7 in 1993, studio 10 was used less and less. It was never digitised - although it did have some widescreen capability through a sub-mixer. Studio 10 was eventually to become home to Talk TV - one of the early new Granada channels, and later to EuroTransMed which, for many years, broadcast medical discussion programmes to hospitals throughout the world. Channel Four's Business Daily also came from this studio for a while.

Studio 10 was converted back into offices around 2002/2003 but its original location can still be seen if you look at the north east corner of the building from outside as the windows it used are a slightly different shape and colour from all the others.